New Delhi, Feb 11 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday launched a forceful counter of Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi’s litany of charges, including selling out the nation, surrendering before foreign forces and compromising India’s interests. From BJP spokespersons to Union Ministers, the party has put out facts to puncture Rahul’s claims.
BJP’s chief spokesperson and Lok Sabha MP Anil Baluni took to X to share a point-by-point rebuttal of Rahul Gandhi’s baseless and misleading charges on the India-US trade deal and also called out his “lies” on the nation’s people and data, which the Congress MP described as the most powerful asset of the 21st century.
Anil Baluni said that during today’s Budget discussion in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi chose theatrics over truth and thus misled both the House and the Nation.
“He did not merely critique the document. He misquoted it, misread it, and then built an argument on that distortion. Parliament deserves scrutiny grounded in facts, not selective readings and convenient misinterpretations. Deliberately misrepresenting the Budget weakens democratic debate and disrespects the intelligence of the people of India,” Baluni stated.
On Rahul’s claims that the government chose to give away data to the US, he termed it ridiculously false and informed that the Union Budget has proposed a tax break for companies setting up data centres in India until 2047.
“This will further India’s goal of data localisation. With more data centres in India, our IT companies will be able to deliver cloud and other AI solutions to clients in the West. More data centres in India equals more opportunities for our IT companies, and equals data localisation in the long run. The data of 1.4 billion Indians stays in India,” he asserted.
Rejecting Rahul’s claims that the Budget didn’t have any provision to fortify India’s supply chains in a globally volatile world, the BJP MP stated that there is a proposal for rare earths, a new semiconductor mission that will focus on all the levels of the value chain, and several critical mineral corridors running through Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Puncturing Rahul’s assertions on digital service tax, Anil Baluni said that the agreement clearly states that a new set of digital rules will be negotiated between India and the US.
He further slammed the Congress MP for quoting from the “older version” of the fact sheet and categorically rejected any insinuations of India opening up its farming sector for US exports.
“One, the updated fact sheet of the US Government carries no mention of pulses. Two, India imports pulses worth more than $2 billion annually,” Baluni said.
He further stated that the Commerce Minister has repeatedly stated that we are not opening up our farming and dairy sector for the USA, and the same stance has been maintained by the Modi Government during its Free Trade Agreement with the European Union.
Refuting Rahul’s claims of tariffs going up from 3 per cent to 18 per cent for India, he stated that it was an incorrect and incomplete assessment.
Baluni further accused Rahul of pushing forward his arguments on documents that no longer reflect reality.
“He is citing an older US government fact sheet that framed India’s proposed $500 billion purchases as a commitment. That language has since been corrected. By relying on an outdated fact sheet, Gandhi is presenting an inflated claim that the US government itself has walked back,” he wrote.
He also brushed aside claims of India receiving no commitment from the US on its exports and informed that since FY15, India’s trade surplus with the US has doubled from $20 billion to $40.9 billion in FY25.
Putting out facts to counter the charge, he wrote, “Our exports to the US have risen from $42.4 billion in FY15 to $86 billion in FY25. Since 2022, our electronic exports to the US have gone from almost zero to $20 billion in 2025.”
Rahul’s other big accusation against the Modi government was of the latter succumbing to US pressure and compromising its energy security interests.
Dismissing this charge, the BJP MP said that India has always prioritised its national interests and added that the imports from Russia rose from about 0.1 million barrels per day to nearly 2 million barrels per day in 2023. That was strategic autonomy, not surrender.
“The Modi government has shown that it will bypass Western pressure to secure India’s energy needs. Rahul Gandhi’s argument has already been disproven, and it is worth recalling that his own party opposed Russian oil imports at the time,” he stated.
–IANS
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